In this article, you will learn how to use a pivot table to organize and make sense of data. We will be using data collected about volcanoes. Students like volcanoes.

The data comes from Oregon State University. I am providing the link to the source. http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/ volcano. I took this data and placed it into a Google Sheet. The link to the sheet is at the end of this post. Use the link to make a copy of the sheet. Share the link with students so they have their own copy.

We will learn how to use use a pivot table to organize the information in the data sheet. This pivot table will help answer some questions we have about volcanoes. Use the questions in this article as part of your lesson. Start by asking students these questions before looking at the data. This starts the questioning and thinking process in their minds.

Ask students to come up with some of their own questions. There are some questions the data will not be able to answer. Ask students how they would go about answering questions that were not answered by the available data.

In the end, we will take the data and create charts. Charts are a great way to represent data. Students are often presented with charts in assessments. They are asked to interpret the information. Constructing charts of their own is very empowering when it comes to answering questions from charts.